This invention relates to a surgical pillow for supporting the heart or other body organs of a patient during surgical operations performed thereon, such as open heart surgery for example, and to a method of performing such operations.
Open heart surgery such as bypass operations on the circumflex artery system are especially difficult because of the inaccessibility of the field of operation on the heart and the difficulty of maintaining the heart in place in a steady position.
In the performance of such open heart operations heretofore, it has been common practice to support the heart by means of hygienic cotton gauze during the progress of the surgical operation. At the conclusion of the operation, the patient's blood lost during the course of the operation is pumped from the patient's chest cavity, and also rinsed out of the gauze support which has absorbed some of the lost blood, and after proper cleansing is then reused by reinjection into the patient's blood circulation system. With this improved operating procedure, the amount of blood required to be transfused to the patient in open heart surgery was reduced from the previous average eight to eleven pints to as little as two pints or so. However, in employing a gauze support for the patient's heart as referred to above, it is quite difficult to keep the heart in a steady position during the course of the bypass operation.
Other forms of support for a patient's heart during open heart surgery have been proposed heretofore. Thus, a fishnet type support of rectangular outline and formed of fine inelastic strands has been previously proposed but found unsatisfactory. The fine inelastic strands of such a fishnet support impinge on the coronary arteries, such as might stop all coronary circulation and possibly cause some additional myocardial damage.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,983,863 to Janke et al., discloses a heart support which is described as being an improvement over the above-mentioned fishnet support. The heart support shown in this patent is formed of a network or open mesh of crossing flat cloth tapes having a heart shaped outline and provided with stretchable cloth end tapes for positioning around the heart while the apex of the left ventricle thereof is temporarily lifted from the pericardial cavity of the patient, and then tying the end tapes together, after the heart is lowered back into the pericardial cavity, to secure the support to the heart. The broad end of the heart support is then pulled upward to expose the circumflex artery system of the heart and clamped to the surgical drapes overlying the patient. The so positioned heart support is stated to then hold the heart in steady position for bypass operations on the circumflex coronary artery of the patient. However, the retrieval and reuse of the patient's blood lost through absorption by the cloth tapes of such a heart support necessitates the time consuming operations of rinsing the absorbed blood out of the support and cleansing such retrieved blood before returing it to the patient's circulatory system.
Support pillows adapted for entirely different uses than as a support for a patient's heart or other body organs are, of course, well known in themselves. Thus, U.S. Pat. No. 1,491,146, Larson, discloses a head rest pillow consisting of a concavely dished outer envelope of pliant material such as india rubber or textile fabric, which may be either inflatable with air under pressure through a subsequently closed nipple in the envelope wall or which may be filled with a compressible padding material such as sponge rubber. U.S. Pat. No. 2,522,120, Kaskey et al., discloses a head, or neck, or back rest pillow shaped to conform to the contour of the body portion to be rested and formed of an outer fabric case or covering filled with a suitable cushion filler such as foam or sponge rubber or Kapok molded to the desired shape, or containing an inflatable rubber or plastic bladder. U.S. Pat. No. 3,308,491, Spence, discloses a body support cushion for a chair seat, bed pad, or the like, comprised of a thin, elastic cover of gum or latex sheet material filled with a gel-like substance having a jelly-like consistency, such as an organosiloxane gel. U.S. Pat. No. 3,378,864, Cornes, discloses a self-inflating buoyant device such as a life raft, sleeping mattress, cushion, bumper or protective device, which is comprised of a preformed inner body member of a polyurethane synthetic cellular aeriferous material encased in an envelope of vinyl or plastic coated nylon having an orifice with a removable closure cap in the envelope wall for permitting selfinflation of the device. U.S. Pat. No. 3,968,530, Dyson, discloses an external body support pad or mattress, such as a sacral pad or heel pad, comprised of an inner filling of a mixture of a gel or viscous fluid and fine sawdust or hollow beads of silica and organic silicates or polystyrene, enclosed within a flexible fluid-impermeable envelope of PVC sheet which, in turn, is enclosed within an outer cover of open weave cotton material and a second outer cover of polyester-cotton fabric. All of the support pillows shown in the above patents and adapted for other useful purposes are, however, unsatisfactory for one reason or another for use as a surgical support pillow for body organs such as a patient's heart during surgical operations thereon. They would not provide the desired organ supporting action and other advantages provided by the surgical support pillow disclosed herein by applicant.